12month MBA at Oxford College of Business – MBA for the Business Elite
View(s):Safraz Hussain Careem – Chief Business Officer, ANYTHING.LK
An experience worth repeating
The 12month AIB MBA at Oxford College of Business (OCB) in affiliation with the Australian Institute of Business (AIB) made such an impact on Safraz Careem’s life that he’d definitely love to do it again. “When I look back to this experience, so many positive memories come to mind,” who is currently the Chief Business Officer of Sri Lanka’s most popular online shopping portal ANYTHING.LK.
Safraz describes the 12month MBA at OCB as “an asset for all your life”. But, if he had to choose of the many benefits the program delivers, one would be the human experience. “We’ve been sharing 12 tough months of our lives with classmates we had never seen before and top professors and professionals. This is definitely an adventure by itself in your life. You are definitely pushed out of your comfort zone, activating areas of your brain that are usually asleep in our day-to-day professional lives.”
Another benefit is what Safraz refers to as ‘X-ray glasses’. “The 12month MBA at OCB gave me tools and knowledge to very quickly feel what is right or wrong in an organization or a business case. It’s regularly helped me identifying the key success factors to turn around a difficult situation.”
MBA to Chief Business Officer
Safraz came to OCB with a background in Sales and Marketing. “Although I had experience in working for many reputed organizations, I wanted my eyes to be opened to a broader world,” he recalls of his decision to pursue the 12month MBA at OCB. “I was looking for a better understanding of hard topics such as strategy, marketing and organization. The good surprise was to discover plenty of fundamental, useful knowledge in the soft skill area as well: negotiation, B2B relationships and organizational behavior.”
Prior to his MBA, Safraz worked as the Sales Manager of global oil giant Shell; post-MBA he joined as the CBO and Shareholder of ANYTHING.LK which is Sri Lanka’s most popular online shopping portal. Without a doubt it is the 12month MBA at OCB which helped me in managing the operations of ANYTHING.LK, the MBA program gives you a common language,” Safraz says.
“Let’s be honest, most of the top executives we interact with have gone through education to learn the business concepts that are used daily. The 12month MBA at OCB gave me the keys to understand how this community thinks, why they take decisions they take, and the right vocabulary to use. If your goal (like me) is to be part of this community of executives and that you are able to create the right opportunities, then it is difficult to escape a program like the 12month MBA offered at Oxford College of Business in affiliation with the Australian Institute of Business.”
An MBA program with the best rankings in the country
Today, Safraz Careem believes his employer and colleagues are the ones benefitting the most from his MBA experience at OCB, but he’d still encourage others to step inside the business school classroom. “If someone comes to me as a candidate, I would already congratulate them for considering the 12month MBA at OCB. It is an important first step; many people don’t even consider this as an option. A step now made much easier with the release of latest MBA rankings issued by the CEO Magazine (UK), where the 12month AIB MBA was ranked #3 in Australia and ranked #10 in the world for 2012.
This culture of advice continues post-MBA as well among classmates and the network of MBA alumni. Although Safraz says time certainly makes it challenging to maintain links with classmates, especially when careers are moving people around, he still enjoys professional support and social occasions with his MBA cohort, which OCB organizes regularly together with the AIB MBA Alumni.
“I still have very regular contact with some school mates and professors. The alumnus organizes various events through the year which brings us all together for very effective sessions of networking. From the career or business perspective, it’s definitely helpful when you find somebody that can share with you important information about a company or a job. In my case it’s been very helpful a few times, and I could help as well. The 12month MBA is one of the best decisions that i have taken in my life and Post Dialog Telecom merger with ANYTHING.LK the learning I have received from the 12month AIB MBA has really helped me in my career.
Anil Ponweera – General Manager Procurement, Lalan Rubbers (Pvt) Limited
The 12month MBA at OCB was a life changing experience for Mr. Anil Ponweera, but there is one thing he wishes he’d known before stepping into the classroom at Oxford College of Business for the first time. “I wish I had known what an enlightening and fulfilling experience it would be, and how it can positively impact one’s career and outlook,” he says.
MBA helped me secure senior managerial positions
Anil is currently the General Manager Procurement at Lalan Rubbers Pvt Limited. He has had several different positions working in many of the top Multinational organizations however two months before completing his MBA he was selected as General Manager of one of the leading export conglomerate in rubber and nitrile gloves. “The program has given me the confidence to secure senior managerial positions and to excel in them,” he says. “I have the business acumen to succeed within each position but I wouldn’t have had these opportunities if it weren’t for the 12month AIB MBA at OCB. Instead, I would have continued on a purely technical path and not explored the breadth of management, finance and strategy.”
It was his quest for further knowledge and management experience that encouraged Anil to turn to the12month MBA at OCB MBA in the first place. “I wanted to broaden my knowledge and management experience beyond technical fields,” he explains. “I wanted to obtain practical applied knowledge and experiences that I could use immediately in my job and career.”
The opportunity to obtain one of the world’s best MBA’s from the best Business School in the country
“Obtaining the knowledge and confidence to address new management and financial challenges I had previously not understood was one of the best parts of the 12month MBA at OCB,” he says. ”To be able to explore new and lucrative opportunities that were closed off or perceived as out of reach before the program, that is the greatest advantage.”
Anil has experienced firsthand the value of the 12month MBA at OCB and says managers shouldn’t rest on their laurels and rely on their early education and experience. “The 12month AIB MBA at OCB is a great way to change from being a manager to being a leader,” he says. “A MBA which is ranked 10th in the world and ranked 3 in Australia from the best Business School in the country is obviously a nice passport to have, but much more importantly, it’s what you actually end up doing with it, because the opportunities that you get after 12 months have no boundaries !” For more information contact Malindu Ranasinghe – 0714151547 or visit www.ocbsrilanka.com
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